PLAY AND INSTINCT. 55 



It is undoubtedly true that Weismann has seriously 

 shaken the faith ih inheritance of acquired charac- 

 ters which formerly played so important a role in phi- 

 losophy, especially in the departments of ethics and soci- 

 ology. He accomplished this quite as much by his 

 searching criticism of the Lamarckian principle as by 

 his own complicated theory of heredity. Even adher- 

 ents of the Lamarckian system admit that its principles 

 were rather too easily assumed. And, fortunately, one 

 can speak of a neo-Darwinism as opposed to neo-La- 

 marckism * without being pledged to all the mysteries 

 of Biophores and Determinants, Ides and Idants. Gal- 

 ton,! an author whose stirp theory is in many re- 

 spects analogous, is very sceptical in regard to the in- 

 heritance of acquired characters, if he does not abso- 



Various Races of Man : " Organic bodies naturally contain germs 

 of special developments that pertain to special parts. Birds of 

 the same species that live in different climates have the germs of 

 an extra set of feathers, that are developed or not according to 

 climatic conditions. . . . External things may be the occasion but 

 can never be the cause of such developments, which are always 

 hereditary and specific. Accident or mechanical-physical causes 

 can as little effect any permanent modification in the form or attri- 

 butes of the members as they can produce an organism itself. . . . 

 Diseases are sometimes hereditary, but these do not belong to the 

 organism but are rather ferments in bad humors which propagate 

 themselves by infection. . . . Air, sunshine, and food may modify 

 an animal's body during its growth, but these modifications are 

 not to be confused with the generative force which carries on its 

 operations independently of them, so that whatever was to be 

 perpetuated was already being developed for the advantage and 

 permanence of the creature." Kant here speaks of modifications 

 within the species, and from a teleological standpoint. Neverthe- 

 less the similarity of ideas is astonishing. 



* Lester F. Ward, Neo-Darwinism and Neo-Lamarckism, 1891. 



f Francis Galton, A Theory of Heredity, Journal of the An- 

 thropological Institute, vol. v, pp. 329 ff., and especially 344 f. 



